Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff

Every story has two sides. Every relationship has two perspectives. And sometimes, it turns out, the key to a great marriage is not its truths but its secrets. At the core of this rich, expansive, layered novel, Lauren Groff presents the story of one such marriage over the course of twenty-four years.

At age twenty-two, Lotto and Mathilde are tall, glamorous, madly in love, and destined for greatness. A decade later, their marriage is still the envy of their friends, but with an electric thrill we understand that things are even more complicated and remarkable than they have seemed.

I cannot believe Fates and Furie was Obama’s best book of 2015. Yes, this is a story of marriage but not a realistic one. The majority of the book focused on their sex-life, with Lotto and Mathilde coming off as sex-crazed teenagers and was more information than I needed.

Fates and Furies is split into two parts. The first is of Lotto, it started out strong with a focus on his childhood but once he hit adulthood, he became an overgrown, entitled child and I quickly lost interest.

The second half was told by Matilde and does explain Lotto a little bit better. However, the focus of her story was how she whored herself as a college student to pay for school and how it defined her. It all became too much and eventually turned repetitive.

Sadly, the narration did not help much as Will Damron and Julia Whelan had such soothing voices that at one point I actually feel asleep (although that may have been from boredom). I was an hour away from finishing when the audiobook was automatically returned to my library and I didn’t care to renew it. I feel that is very telling to my opinions of Fates and Furies and needn’t say anymore.